We all know how important emojis are in our daily life; we always use them for fun, to express better our feelings, or sometimes as a game when replacing words. But have you ever wondered which was the first emoji?

It all started in the late 1990s with Japanese telecom NTT DoCoMo, which offered a mobile service called i-mode that let users send small amounts of data over their pagers, including a heart icon at the end of their messages, most known as <3, which probably many of us used it.

But when DoCoMo pulled it from the service, people demanded the company to bring it back, and so, in 1999, they released a new heart icon plus 175 other icons that became the world’s first emoji.

Nowadays there are countless icons, and even more to come. Emojis are so likable by people and so used in social media that it even has its own celebration day: the 17th of July. Why that day? Well, because it’s the day that appears on the calendar emoji!

So anyone who wanted to join the celebration this year and spread more emojis than usual, just needed to use the hashtag #WorldEmojiDay. Take a look at how digital agencies celebrated and which are their favorites!

Some were very creative

A glimpse inside #agencylife using 5 emojis. Happy #WorldEmojiDay, everyone! pic.twitter.com/5BqRMUkJqD

— Hudson Integrated (@HudsonIntegratd) July 17, 2018

Happy #WorldEmojiDay from all of us at @BackeliteAgency ! pic.twitter.com/ny86fdxeRY

— Backelite (@BackeliteAgency) July 17, 2018

In honour of #WorldEmojiDay, here’s our CMA WhatsApp group with our personalised emojis! pic.twitter.com/RX5zP1FCRA

— The CMA (@the_cma) July 17, 2018

So much that we couldn’t guess everything!

En l'honneur du #WorldEmojiDay, on vous met au défi de retrouver quelques unes de nos expertises en répondant ou en citant ce tweet ! #AgencyLife #Experts #1Emoji1Expertise

⚖️

⚛️

✏️

️

✨
️

⚙️

Bonne chance

— Publicis.Sapient France (@Sapient_FR) July 17, 2018

I’m sure we couldn’t guess this one because it was in dutch

Oké, we hebben jullie duidelijk onderschat. Speciaal voor de slimmeriken hebben we het iets moeilijker gemaakt. Raad jij het deze keer? #WorldEmojiDay pic.twitter.com/CLBk5GhdhK

— Marbles (@marbles) July 17, 2018

And others took emojis even to real life!

Happy World Emoji Day! Post your favorite emoji in the comments! #emojigamestrong #emoji #WorldEmojiDay pic.twitter.com/LAP6l2cGbt

— nvision (@nvision) July 17, 2018

What's your favourite emoji? These are ours! #WorldEmojiDay pic.twitter.com/lMMSF4dbuF

— MCM Net (@mcmnet) July 17, 2018

Life is better with a little bit of expression. Happy World Emoji Day from our team to you.#worldemojiday pic.twitter.com/LEKf61fDMb

— Alsayegh Media (@AlsayeghMedia) July 17, 2018

We always have fun with your posts, hope you did as well and thanks for sharing your #agencylife !

Agency LifeDigital agencyInternet ArticlesSocial Media